The lecture tour Off The Record with Kevin and Joe Jonas that stopped Saturday at Keswick Theatre in Glenside (the second of its three stops) seemed to suggest that Disney phenom boy bad The Jonas Brothers’ time has long passed.

But the show was just so ill-conceived -- and bad – that it left a glimmer of wonder whether there still may be something left in the Jonas brand if it were done right.

The farewell tour of a folk group after more than 50 years together, an all-star group featuring the artist who has won more Grammy Awards than any other male country singer, the songwriter from the best-loved jam group of all time and more have been announced in the new season of a regional music venue.

In a career that now has stretched 60 years and included music, television, theater and movies, actress and singer Leslie Uggams has worked with just about everyone.

She performed with Frank Sinatra as well as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. She’s done Broadway with James Earl Jones and she was nominated for Emmy and Golden Globe awards for her role in the landmark 1970s television mini-series with Ben Vereen, Cicely Tyson, Lou Gossett Jr. and others.

So when actress and singer Faith Prince had to leave a traveling production of the stage show “4 Girls 4,” musical director John McDaniel reached out to Uggams – with whom he, of course, had worked before – to join singers Maureen McGovern, Andrea McArdle and Donna McKechnie in the show.

The show performs at 8 p.m. today, April 4, at The State Theatre in Easton.

Judging by the Dick Fox’s Golden Boys show with Fabian, Bobby Rydell and Frankie Avalon that Friday played at Sands Bethlehem Event Center, pretty much forever – or at least as long as there are people who remember the idols and their songs.

Fabian Forte, who in the late 1950s and early ‘60s was a teen idol who had a half-dozen chart hits in a year, says teen idols haven’t changed much.

He says current idol Justin Bieber, who is besieged of late by charges of breaking the law by racing his high-end cars on city streets, using illegal substances and battling with neighbors and paparazzi, probably isn’t all that different from others his age.

Fabian

And if there were paparazzi in his day, Fabian says, he might have gotten caught doing things wrong.

But he didn’t, and Fabian’s image remains that of the clean-cut teen with a pompadour who was literally discovered by an agent on the streets of South Philadelphia, recorded such hits as “Tiger” and “Turn Me Loose” and starred in a dozen mostly teen-oriented movies before he turned 21.

Fifty-five years later, Fabian, now 71, continues to trade on that image as he joins fellow former Philadelphia teen idols Frankie Avalon and Bobby Rydell in Dick Fox’s Golden Boys at Sands Bethlehem Event Center tonight, March 7.

Being the Southern California dudes they are, members of the alt-rock band Switchfoot have always been intrigued by surf films such as the seminal 1966 movie “Endless Summer,” which embraces the idea of following warm weather around the world to ride the waves, frontman Jon Foreman says.

Switchfoot, with Jon Foreman second from left

So Switchfoot took a film crew with it on its 2012 world tour. The result is the documentary “Fading West,” which goes behind the scenes with the band as it seeks out surfing destinations while on the tour, and ends up painting a portrait of the band’s isolation and yearning for home.

Switchfoot is back out on a tour that stops at 7:30 p.m. today, Oct. 6, Sunday at Keswick Theatre in Glenside, and is using the 85-minute film as its opening act.

In a recent telephone call, Foreman talked about the film, Switchfoot’s upcoming album, and the band’s successful 17-year career.

That is, if the album — whose title refers to the Greek myth of Icarus, whose wax wings melted when he flew too close to the sun – wasn’t about love, the subject that every record Radin writes is about, the singer-songwriter says.

With the disc released May 7, Radin now is out on a short tour that’s a fan appreciation jaunt of sorts — just 11 stops, all venues with capacities of 350 or fewer. It comes to Philadelphia’s World Cafe Live on Tuesday for its penultimate stop. Every ticket-buyer also receives a free download copy of the album.

In a recent call from Los Angeles to promote the show, Radin talked about the new disc, why he self-released it and the success he’s had placing his songs in television, movies, commercials and more.

Actor Ronny Cox was one of the four stars of the 1972 movie “Deliverance” and had another leading role in the Oscar Best-picture-nominated “Bound For Glory.” He had other memorable roles in “RoboCop,” “Total Recall,” “Taps” and “Beverly Hills Cop.”

On TV, he starred in “Apple’s Way” and “St. Elsewhere.” He’s been on “Desperate Housewives” and “Dexter.”

But Cox says music is his first love, and tonight, Saturday, March 23, he’ll play a folk/country set with his band at Listen Live! Music at The Macungie Institute, 510 E. Main St., Macungie.

Here are some other surprises about Cox – and merely some observations – from a recent telephone interview to promote the show:

Welcome to the fourth day of Lehigh Valley Music's 5 Days of Jackson 5 contest to win the newly released “Jackson 5ive: The Complete Animated Series” DVD set.

The set includes the complete 1970s animated cartoon series -- 23 full-length episodes containing 46 original Jackson 5 songs. “The Jackson 5ive” series ran 1971-73 on ABC-TV, but has been revived several times.

Back in the early 1970s, the singing group Jackson 5 was so popular, it even became the subject of a Saturday morning cartoon series that used its fictionalized adventures -- such as having to do farm work or play for the President of the United States – to impart lessons to young viewers.

The series, “The Jackson 5ive,” only lasted two years, 1971-73, during its original run on ABC-TV, but its popularity – and the group’s -- has brought it back occasionally for another TV run, such as when Michael Jackson’s solo career was big in the mid- 1980s.

The fact that each episode included two of the band’s songs didn’t hurt.

Now for the first time ever, the complete animated series -- 23 full-length episodes containing 46 original Jackson 5 songs – has been packaged for home release. “Jackson 5ive: The Complete Animated Series” was released Jan. 15.

It cost $32.99 for DVD and $39.99 for Blu-ray/DVD combo pack.

But you can win it for free from Lehigh Valley Music, with 5 Days of Jackson 5 contest, starting today.

In 2009, TV and radio producer Denny Somach saw the value in a program that disc jockey Carol Miller was doing on New York’s classic rock radio station WAXQ-FM, 104.3. She was playing the music of iconic rock band Led Zeppelin interspersed with trivia and tidbits of information.

So Somach helped syndicate “Get the Led Out” nationally, writing and producing it and offering more than 5,000 hours of interviews he conducted and audio content he collected about the band since early in his career at Allentown rock radio station WSAN-AM 1470.

New book 'Get The Led Out: How Led Zeppelin Became the Biggest Band in the World by Allentown native Denny Somach

About two years ago, Somach says he realized that even using a minute or two of his material in each show meant the public still never would be exposed to the bulk of it. So Somach, an Allentown native, decided to put together a book.

After doing two girly songs to start his concert Saturday night at Sands Bethlehem Event Center – two songs in which he used the f-word a total of eight times -- Dan Finnerty, front man for comic musical act The Dan Band, stopped to speak to the crowd.

A film of Jimi Hendrix’s August 1969 Woodstock concert, to be shown for the first time ever in celebration of the influential guitar player’s 70th birthday, will have two of its fewer than 80 screenings nationwide at Lehigh Valley venues, it has been announced.

The catchphrase from the 1960s television show “Star Trek” was “to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

Actor William Shatner, whose role as that show’s starship Enterprise commander Capt. Kirk has come to identify his career, spent nearly two hours Sunday at Easton’s State Theatre going where he, indeed, has gone before – an anecdotal recounting of his life in his one-man show, “Shatner’s World: We Just Live in It.”

And while the show helped the audience explore a strange new world, it missed a lot of the obvious destinations that might have made the trip a little more enjoyable.

Actor WIlliam Shatner told of his world at Easton's State Theatre on Sunday

In a career of more than 60 years, William Shatner had been a dramatic television and movie actor who portrayed Capt. Kirk of “Star Trek,” police officer T.J. Hooker and lawyer Denny Crane on “The Practice” and “Boston Legal.”

Shatner’s also played comedic roles, was a reality TV and game show host on “Rescue 911” and “Show Me the Money,” and has been a commercial pitchman for Priceline.com, an author and even a singer.

And when Shatner takes the stage Nov. 11 at Easton’s State Theatre, he’ll be all those things.

Shater will perform his one-man Broadway show, “Shatner’s World: We Just Live In It.”

William Shatner in publicity photo for 'Shatner's World: We Just Live in It'

In a recent telephone interview from Los Angeles to promote the show, Shatner spoke about his long (60 year) career, the turns it’s taken, and his situation these days at age 81.

JOHN J. MOSER has been around long enough to have seen the original Ramones in a small club in New Jersey, U2 from the fourth row of a theater and Bob Dylan's born-again tours. But he also has the number for All-American Rejects' Nick Wheeler on his cell phone, wrote the first story ever done on Jack's Mannequin and hung out in Wiz Khalifa's hotel room.

OTHER CONTRIBUTORS

JODI DUCKETT: As The Morning Call's assistant features editor responsible for entertainment, she spends a lot of time surveying the music landscape and sizing up the Valley's festivals and club scene. She's no expert, but enjoys it all — especially artists who resonated in her younger years, such as Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Tracy Chapman, Santana and Joni Mitchell.

KATHY LAUER-WILLIAMS enjoys all types of music, from roots rock and folk to classical and opera. Music has been a constant backdrop to her life since she first sat on the steps listening to her mother’s Broadway LPs when she was 2. Since becoming a mother herself, she has become well-versed on the growing genre of kindie rock and, with her son in tow, can boast she has seen a majority of the current kid’s performers from Dan Zanes to They Might Be Giants.

STEPHANIE SIGAFOOS: A Jersey native raised in Northeast PA, she was reared in a house littered with 8-tracks, 45s and cassette tapes of The Beatles, Elvis, Meatloaf and Billy Joel. She also grew up on the sounds of Reba McEntire, Garth Brooks and Tim McGraw and can be found traversing the countryside in search of the sounds of a steel guitar. A fan of today's 'new country,' she digs mainstream/country-pop crossovers like Lady Antebellum and Sugarland and other artists that illustrate the genre's diversity.